


not a mistake

by Emily_Nicaoidh



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: M/M, Multi, Nicaise lives AU, Nikandros does not trust Laurent, background Nicaise/Isander, background Pallas/Lazar, established Damen/Laurent, how they got together, past Damen/Nikandros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 20:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15178790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emily_Nicaoidh/pseuds/Emily_Nicaoidh
Summary: Damen wanted Nikandros.Laurent wanted Nikandros.Nikandros wanted Laurent to fuck off back to Vere and never talk to Damen or himself ever again.Or, three times Damen and Laurent failed to convince Nikandros they honestly did want to have a threesome with him and one time Nikandros convinced himself.





	not a mistake

Nikandros stood abruptly, slamming his hands on the marble council table. “This is a farce. You’re just Damianos’ latest blond mistake! You have no authority here!”

 

He stormed from the room before Laurent could reply.

 

“Nik—” Damen began, but Nikandros was already well out of earshot.

 

The Vaskians were beginning to look uneasy, the Veretian contingent were looking delighted, and so Laurent glanced at Torveld, finding his expression measuredly blank. Laurent sighed and shuffled the map in front of him.

 

“Are we agreed, then, that the trade route I’ve proposed will be safer and shorter than the old routes, now that the border between Vere and Akielos is no longer a factor?”

 

The Veretians didn’t like the new routes; Laurent didn’t care. The new routes spent more time in the plains than they did in the mountains, and being forced to travel on open road instead of through protected mountain passes would make it harder for Laurent’s countrymen to keep up their black market trade in silks and chalis.

 

The Veretian delegation struggled to argue against the new routes without making explicit mention of their less than legal activities, and Laurent folded his arms across his chest. It amused him, for the time being, to listen to the delegations posturing.

 

Damen shifted beside him, and Laurent glanced his way in time to see Damen’s eyes flick towards the door. Laurent shrugged, careful to make the movement slight enough to be imperceptible to anyone but Damen.

 

“Our friends,” Damen began, rising to his feet. “Know that the routes our dear King of Vere and Acquitart proposes have our full support. We regret that we must take our leave, but a pressing matter has come to our attention.”

 

It was a good excuse, formal enough without actually saying anything, and Laurent watched as his only ally in this boring affair slipped away.

 

—

Damen was pretty sure he knew where he would find Nikandros.

 

“Exalted.” Nikandros bowed as Damen entered the training area, lower than he should have, as a kyros.

 

“Nik,” Damn frowned. “Stop that.” He strolled over to the wall, where dulled practice swords of several different styles were displayed, and selected a short sword.

 

“Your Veretian snake dismissed you?” Nikandros asked, raising his sword.Damen’s heart ached at the scorn in his voice.

 

“Why, Nik?” Damen asked, circling Nikandros. “Why can’t you accept him?”

 

Nikandros’ answer was the clashing of their blades, as both leapt forward at once. For some moments the only sounds in the practice arena were the scuffle of their bare feet in the sawdust and the metallic clang each time one blocked the other’s blow with his sword.

 

Nikandros was a little slow, coming into the next block, and Damen turned his sword at the last second so that rather than striking his friend, he knocked his sword from his grip.

 

“Do you really want to know?” Nikandros asked, picking up his sword and wiping the sweat-sticky sawdust off the handle.

 

“Yes, of course,” Damen answered.

 

“Because he’s using you, they always are, and when he’s done with you and your heart’s broken I’m going to be the one left to—” Nikandros stopped and shook his head.

 

“Nik.” Damen’s voice was softer. “Hey. He’s different. He wears my cuff, remember? This is different.”

 

“From where I’m standing it looks the same,” Nikandros insisted.

 

“Then stand somewhere else,” Damen said, and stepped closer.

 

“You have him, now.” Nikandros said, and Damen could hear the sadness in his voice. “As much as I…relations with Vere are still fragile. I would not endanger that.”

 

“Nobody will know.”

 

“Your Veretian snake will know.”

 

“He doesn’t mind.”

 

Nikandros searched Damen’s expression, but there was only the usual open, honest look that Nikandros was so fond of. “Truly?”

 

“He guessed,” Damen admitted. “It’s possible that I said something, while I was delirious and recovering from being stabbed.”

 

“Possible.” Nikandros snorted.

 

Damen sighed and hefted his practice sword. “Fine. I did say something. Another round?”

 

—

 

Sweaty and a little bruised where Nikandros had landed a rare blow on his side but tired and satisfied, Damen headed back to to his chambers. He struggled, sometimes, to think of these rooms as his and Laurent’s rather than as Theomedes’.

 

Laurent lounged on a chaise lounge, leaning back against a pile of cushions with one foot dangling off the edge, a book held drooping in his hand. He was dressed in a chiton, and Damen stopped short in the entryway.

 

“What’s the occasion?” Damen asked, letting his gaze roam lazily over Laurent. He rarely wore Akielon clothing, and when he did it was never without purpose.

 

Laurent frowned. “It seems I miscalculated. I had thought Nikandros would be joining us tonight.”

 

“He didn’t believe me, of all things,” Damen said, lifting Laurent’s legs and settling himself underneath them on the chaise. “He thought I was trying to be disloyal to you, or something. And there is the small matter of how much he dislikes you.”

 

“Right. Because that would ever happen.” Laurent snorted.

 

“I think you’ll have to talk to him before he’ll be wiling to believe it,” Damen replied. “And unless you want to do that now, it’ll be just us tonight.”

 

“I do like just us,” Laurent said, closing his book and dropping it onto a pillow on the floor.

 

——

 

“Exalted,” Nikandros said when he arrived in Laurent’s office, inclining his head slightly, but not anywhere near as much as Laurent had seen him do for Damen. Laurent smothered a smile.

 

“Kyros,” Laurent acknowledged, then fell silent. He watched, amusement growing, as Nikandros grew increasingly uncomfortable as the silence stretched into minutes.

 

“Did you need something?” Nikandros asked eventually.

 

“Why do you question your king?” Laurent asked, stepping closer to Nikandros and walking a deliberately lazy circle around him.

 

“Damianos-Exalted likes that I question him. We have been…close for several years. It’s part of my job,” Nikandros said.

 

Laurent allowed himself a slight smile, since he was standing behind Nikandros and the kyros could not see his expression.

 

“You were once close,” Laurent corrected. “But you are not now, I believe?” He paused in his circle, peering closely at Nikandros.

 

Nikandros was silent.

 

“Or are you accusing your king of infidelity?” Laurent continued, trying another tactic.

 

“Your king too,” Nikandros snapped, and Laurent smiled.

 

“Ah. There we are,” he said. His voice was not warm. “Yes, my king too. As I am his.”

 

Nikandros’ jaw twitched.

 

Laurent took a step back, waiting.

 

“If you don’t need me for anything, Exalted, I should return to the practice yards. I was drilling the troops when you summoned me.” Nikandros’ voice is icy.

 

“As you were,” Laurent relented with a slight nod.

 

— —

 

Damen sat on his throne, struggling to avoid glancing at Laurent, seated upon his own throne beside him. Members of the Veretian delegation, the Vaskian and Patran nobles,and the Akielon kyroi approached the low table set up on the dais in front of them one by one, bowing as they bent to sign the trade agreement that the council had finally, albeit somewhat begrudgingly, agreed upon.

 

It was Laurent’s agreement, really. Damen had given only minimal input, trusting Laurent with most of the details. It was a trial run of sorts of how they intended to divide duties between the two of them. Laurent was deeply uninterested in training the Veretian army, Damen knew, while he itched with eagerness to get started training a combined Akielon-Veretian army. That, however, would have to wait until their joint reign was more than a few months old. He knew that hisses of _prince-killer_ still followed him through the streets of Vere.

 

In the meantime, as a compromise, Nikandros was drilling captains who would return to their regiments and teach the Akielon style of battle to their soldiers. It wasn’t ideal, but Damen made no secret of his disdain for Veretian tactics, and while the combined kingdom was on relatively good terms with Vask, there were always Patras and other neighbors to the northeast to think about. Damen refused to leave open the possibility that their fledgeling kingdom could be brought low by something so preventable as a lost battle.

 

When it was Nikandros’ turn to approach the thrones and sign, Damen caught his eye as he ascended to the dais. Nikandros bowed to them both, as all the other nobles and kyroi had done before him, but just as he was rising, Damen caught a flash of a glare in Laurent’s direction.

 

Damen sighed. For a moment he worried that Nikandros would refuse to sign, would make some kind of public spectacle, perhaps claiming that the trade agreement was all Laurent’s doing in an attempt to gain advantage for Vere.

 

But Nikandros signed, and bowed again as he stepped aside, this time making it clear from the angle that he was bowing only to Damen.

 

Beside him, Laurent let out a long-held breath, audible only to Damen. The rest of the nobles signed without incident, and soon the low table was being carried away by servants, and long tables set up throughout the hall for the celebration banquet.

 

Toasts were made, and wine flowed freely. Damen watched as the Veretian nobles, hostilities smoothed over gradually by the generous amounts of wine and delicacies from both countries, talking jovially with the Akielon kyroi. He leaned back against the cool marble of his throne and watched the banquet unfold. Nikandros, as always, was seated off to the side of the hall. Every so often his hand would spasm towards where his sword would normally be sheathed, and Damen watched as each time he forced himself to relax. It was slow, but it seemed even Nikandros was learning to view Veretians with something other than suspicion.

 

Beside him, Laurent was obviously bored. His gaze roamed around the hall, searching for some thing to capture his interest.

 

Damen noticed the instant Laurent’s attention caught on something, and looked to see Nicaise, of all people, approaching Nikandros.

 

Damen watched as Nicaise slid onto the bench beside Nikandros. “Do you know who I am?” Nicaise demanded, his voice carrying over the din.

 

Nikandros glanced his way. “I know you’re the brat who stabbed Damianos-Exalted in the thigh with a fork.” He picked up his wine cup and drained it.

 

“I am so much more than that!” Nicaise spluttered, clearly taken aback. “I was—”

 

“I don’t want to hear about any depraved Veretian practices,” Nikandros cut in.

 

“Fine.” Nicaise glowered. “I _am_ the ambassador from Acquitart to Ios.”

 

“Are you now,” Nikandros asked with amusement. “Are you sure you’re old enough to be drinking that?” He waved at the cup of wine Nicaise as raising to his mouth.

 

“What?” Laurent asked, seeing Damen’s smile.

 

“Can you believe this?” Damen waved in Nikandros’ direction. “Poor Nik.”

 

Laurent snorted. “I think he can defend himself from the advances of a sixteen year old without our help,” he said.

 

Damen’s mouth fell open, incredulous, as Isander, having threaded his way through the crowds and long rows of tables, stationed himself boldly across Nicaise’s lap.

 

“That’s new,” Damen said, inclining his head slightly towards Nicaise and Isander.

 

“Not really,” Laurent said. His voice betrayed his growing boredom.

 

“What? Since when?” Damen asked.

 

“About a month or so, I think?” Laurent mused. “I caught them a few weeks ago in the library. But I didn’t realize they were ready to be so public about it yet.”

 

Across the room, Damen could see Nikandros shifting, slowly putting distance between himself and the younger men. Isander seemed to pick up on the hint somewhat, collecting himself from Nicaise’s lap and sitting down on the floor beside Nicaise’s feet.

 

“That is pretty public,” Damen agreed, watching as Nicaise stroked Isander’s hair, Isander’s head resting against Nicaise’s thigh. “You’re not—worried about Isander?”

 

Nikandros, abandoning the subtlety that was not his best point anyway, got up and wandered over to the table where Makedon sat challenging Pallas to a drinking contest with griva.

 

“No.” Laurent shook his head. “I had a chat with him, after I first caught them,” he admitted. “I was worried, then, that Nicaise was taking advantage of him. Or was going to. Isander’s come a long way. He deserves this.”

 

“I don’t think I’ve ever thought that anyone deserved _Nicaise_ ,” Damen observed.

 

“He’s better, now,” Laurent said. “He’s healing. I think they’re good for each other.”

 

“So your conversation with him didn’t go well, I take it?” Damen asked.

 

Damen watched as Makedon slapped a spluttering Nikandros across the back. Nikandros, for his part, seemed completely done with his experiment with griva. He set his cup down and shook his head at some inaudible question of Makedon’s.

 

“I can’t be sure yet,” Laurent replied. “I expect we’ll know tonight.”

 

 

Damen spent the rest of the banquet plotting his escape. At some point in every banquet, the majority of the guests would be far too drunk and tired to tell whether or not their kings were still there. With the increased number of banquets they were holding after the unification to try to sow goodwill among nobles from the two countries and between their neighbors, Damen had honed identifying that moment as early as possible into an art.

 

Makedon could always be relied upon to bring more griva than it was humanly possible to consume at a single banquet regardless of the number of guests in attendance, and to challenge an impressive number of Veretian nobles to drinking contests. Privately, Damen wondered if Makedon was trying to find out if all Veretians had Laurent’s apparent capacity to hold his liquor or if that was a unique skill of his.

 

Tonight was no exception, and Damen chuckled as he watched the small crowd around Makedon, mostly Veretians, start swaying on their feet alarmingly early in the evening. He glanced around at the other tables, where most of the guests were well on their way to inebriation.

 

Beside him, Laurent cleared his throat. Damen turned to look at him in time to catch a meaningful tilt of his head towards an alcove to the right, where Nicaise and Isander were not trying very hard to hide their state of undress. The party continued around them, everyone else too drunk to notice.

 

“I think we’re in the clear,” Laurent whispered. “I’ll follow you out.”

 

Damen rose and slipped through an archway without checking to see if Laurent was following.

 

The hallways of the palace were more empty than usual; most of the guards had been diverted from their original posts to either join or supervise the banquet.

 

He found Pallas and Lazar stationed in front of his rooms. Pallas had pressed Lazar against the stone wall, and had a hand underneath his chiton. Clearly, neither had thought their kings would be retiring early from the banquet.

 

Damen cleared his throat. They appeared not to notice. The door was usually unlocked, and Damen tried it. It swung open, and Lazar jumped at the creaking sound.

  
“Your! Uh! Exalted! Sorry,” he said, jumbling Akielon and Veretian titles of address together in his embarrassment. Pallas, however, appeared unconcerned, and kept on stroking Lazar, poorly concealed by the chiton.

 

“It’s fine,” Damen said with amusement. “Just…keep half an eye on the corridor, all right?”

 

He expected that Laurent would follow soon after, and hoped that for their sakes, Pallas and Lazar were finished by the time he arrived.

 

Damen poured some wine and sat down on the bed to wait. Laurent loved to undress him.

 

Laurent didn’t come.

 

After an hour of increasingly antsy waiting, during which Damen considered and dismissed five different ways that Laurent could have been assassinated since he last saw him, the door swung open.

 

“Do you know what your Veretian snake tried to do now?” Nikandros strode in the room, face red.

 

“Laurent? Where is he? Is he safe?” Damen grabbed Nikandros’ shoulders before he was aware of what he was doing.

 

“He’s fine,” Nikandros said grimly. “Not that he deserves it. I _warned_ you that he was lying to you. It was only a matter of time before he betrayed you and now look what happened. I was right and you’re going to get your heart broken yet again and I’ll have to deal with it.”

 

“Nik, you aren’t making any sense,” Damen said. “What happened?”

 

“He was in my room, naked, when I got back from the banquet,” Nikandros spat.

 

Damen laughed.

 

“Come on, Nik, what do you want me to say? He’s trying.”

 

“Trying to cheat on you,” Nikandros said.

 

“He’s really not,” Damen said. “Look, I told you we’re interested, he told you, and then he told me that you didn’t believe him, so I guess he’s just trying to convince you he’s telling the truth.”

 

“Damen?” Laurent stomped through the doorway, then froze when he noticed Nikandros. “Oh. You’re here too.”

 

“I’m here, and he already knows what you did,” Nikandros glowered at Laurent.

 

Laurent rolled his eyes. “Can you talk to him?”

 

“I already tried,” Damen said.

 

“I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing,” Nikandros said. “But know this: I am too loyal to my king and to Akielos to risk this alliance for a pretty face. Damianos, you know I want you. If, after this Veretian snake inevitably destroys this fragile country, you want me, then come find me. But not before. I will not be the reason that this alliance fails.”

 

“Nik—” Damen began, but Nikandros held up a hand and Damen fell silent.

 

“Goodbye, Damianos.”

 

Nikandros turned and walked out of the room.

 

For a moment both kings were quiet, then Laurent laughed softly. “That isn’t at all how I thought this would go,” he admitted.

 

Damen sighed. “I think we should let it go. I know Nik, when he gets like this no argument will make him change his mind. He might get there on his own somehow, but we're not going to be able to change his mind at this point.”

 

“Alright,” Laurent agreed.

 

“I can’t believe you waited for him in his room naked,” Damen said, laughing a little. “Did you honestly think that would change his mind?”

 

“It was a bit of a last ditch effort,” Laurent admitted. “I was thinking maybe he would be so overcome with lust for my obviously sexy body that he wouldn’t be able to help himself. I thought maybe once we got started I could, I don’t know, sort of steer him down the corridor to our chambers and then we could all three fuck.”

 

“Not your best work, as far as plots go,” Damen said with a shake of his head. “Anyway, come to bed? I was waiting for you.”

 

“Yes,” Laurent said.

 

— —

 

Nikandros dropped his practice sword into the pile of words strewn across the grass. The soldiers he had been training were lying around the field, cursing when they could breathe. Laurent had apparently been less understanding than Damen when he had caught Pallas and Lazar fucking outside their rooms, and had ordered them to lead the soldiers in a ten mile run before their regular training the next day.

 

Nikandros had joined the run, but still felt restless and unsatisfied at the end of it. He didn’t want to lie on the grass; he still wanted to punch Laurent. Or maybe Damen. Or maybe fuck Laurent, he wasn’t sure.

 

Deciding the troops deserved a bit of a rest, Nikandros headed to the edge of the field, were the grass gave way to a narrow beach. They had gone riding along this beach, Damen and he, back before Kastor’s treachery, before Laurent, and the rocks and inlets looked different to Nikandros from on foot. Rocks that he had looked down at from on horseback rose almost to his head; the familiar route was distorted from this angle.

 

The sense of unease increase as he walked, and as he was reluctantly deciding to turn back, Nikandros heard faint voices from beyond a large rock. Ahead, he knew, was a small sea cave. The floor usually flooded at high tide, but the water never rose above waist height in that cave, and anyway the tide was low now.

 

“Are you sure? I don’t want to do this unless you want it too,” someone was saying.

 

“I want this,” a second man said. “I trust you to take care of me.”

 

Nikandros froze as he recognized the second voice. _Isander._ Once so timid, so true to the way he had been trained, the was a confidence and real desire in his voice made him almost unrecognizable. If the second was Isander, then the first had to be—

 

“I like that we’re neither of each other’s firsts,” Nicaise was saying, and there was a softness to his voice that Nikandros would previously have sworn an oath that he was incapable of.

 

Isander groaned.

 

“I like that we both know already what we want. I like when you tell me how you like it,” Nicaise continued. “I like teasing you, when you tell me what to do and you know I’m going to do it but I take my time.”

 

“Nic—” Isander began, then broke off with a curse.

The curse, more than anything, startled Nikandros into action. The voices from the sea cave had seemed almost otherworldly, unrelated to the men that he knew at court, and the shock of hearing _Isander_ of all people swear jolted Nikandros back to reality. He was intruding on a private moment, he knew. They must have planned this, mapped out how they would sneak away from palace and diplomatic duties in the late morning and rendezvous at the sea cave.

 

Perhaps Laurent had suggested the cave to Nicaise, Nikandros speculated. It was possible that Damen had told Laurent of the times that he and Nikandros had sought out the sea cave for similar rendezvous of their own in years past.

 

Laurent. Nikandros scowled. All day, his thoughts had circled back to Laurent. He had spent the morning’s run wishing he had slugged Laurent the night before when he first saw him naked.

 

He had liked what he had seen, and Laurent knew it. Worse, Laurent knew that Nikandros knew he knew it. There was little chance of Laurent not using that against him at some point in the future, and Nikandros had enough experience with him by now to admit that he probably would not be able to predict when that would happen.

 

 _I like that we both know already what we want._ Nicaise’s words echoed in Nikandros’ mind as he trudged back towards the field, and a new possibility started to bloom in his mind.

 

Before Theomedes’ death, before Kastor’s treachery became obvious, Nikandros had known what he wanted. His future had stretched out before him in an obvious, simple path. He enjoyed the casual relationship that he had with Damen. That would continue until Damen eventually married, and then they would stop, or not, and either way Nikandros would serve his prince and then his king as an advisor, in the military, or however Damen wanted him.

 

For the first time, he wondered if maybe his future might not turn out so different from his old plans after all. 

 

 _I like that we both know already what we want._ Nikandros was starting to realize that Nicaise’s words might relate to more than just Nicaise’s trysts with Isander.

 

NIkandros wanted Damen, he would admit that freely. Anyone who had been part of the court at Ios for more than a few years knew that already. Laurent knew, too, apparently. It was obvious from the things he had said.

 

What did Laurent want? Nikandros wasn’t sure he knew anymore. The idea that Laurent wanted him had seemed ludicrous at first. He had thought it was some kind of distasteful Veretian joke, at first, and then when Laurent had continued, Nikandros had assumed it was some plot to get a ruse out of him, or perhaps an attempt to lure him into doing something to disgrace his king.

 

But now, Nicaise’s words and Isander’s curse echoing in his mind, Nikandros wondered if Laurent had been doing the unthinkable—had Laurent been straightforwardly asking Nikandros for what he wanted?

 

Isander had changed; anyone who had known him at court before would hardly recognize this new, confident Isander who asked for what he wanted. Nicaise, with Isander, was a little less caustic than before. Was it so impossible that Laurent, the ice prince, the cast-iron bitch, now with Damen, a man almost pathologically incapable of subterfuge, had softened somewhat?

 

Nikandros realized he was standing at the edge of the field, had been standing there for some minutes. He wasn’t sure how long. The soldiers were gone. Someone had picked up his practice sword and taken it in along with all the others; presumably Pallas and Lazar had taken charge of training that day. 

 

Across the field, a lone figure strode towards Nikandros, red cape billowing behind him.

 

Damianos.

 

Nikandros took a steadying breath, then started across the field to meet him.

**Author's Note:**

> Nicaise and Isander: accidental matchmakers


End file.
